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If there is no truth and no consequences, there will only be further violations in the future, of both our civil liberties and international law.

From my research on how the brain works under political threat, I suspect the aspirational goal of commentators responding in the public interest instead of based on partisan affiliation is unlikely to happen, but perhaps the editor “priming” us to try to do that—and the cross-cutting advantages and disadvantages politically to Democrats of holding such an inquiry—will make it more possible for us to render relatively non-partisan judgments.

So in trying to escape the inexorable march of neurons in my own partisan brain, I’d have this response: a full public hearing, and whatever action results from it, is both a distraction from what the administration needs to do right now—to focus like a laser on the economy and getting the major reforms in its budget passed (energy, health care, and education)—but essential nonetheless for both domestic and international reasons.

Domestically, we have a Constitution, and all of our laws presuppose it. We cannot have “creating lawyering” that breaks international law at will whenever a President or Vice President feels like it and remain a government under the Constitution. If there is no truth and no consequences, there will only be further violations in the future, of both our civil liberties and international law. (The situation is no different with the banks, where banking executives and regulators alike should have to air all of the major decisions they made that led to millions of Americans losing their jobs, homes, and pensions, and if that leads to consequences for past or current members of the administration, that is the only way to make sure it doesn’t happen again—both to see what kind of cracks in the system led to the meltdown and to prosecute those who perpetrated fraud where fraud was in fact perpetrated.)

From an international standpoint, there is nothing an American President can ever say to another country about human rights or obeying international treaties on anything—including nuclear proliferation—if we hold ourselves above international law and say “let bygones be bygones” every time American leaders commit crimes, including war crimes. If none were committed, Bush administration officials will be vindicated at home or at The Hague. If they did perpetrate war crimes and we take no action or are complicit in covering up their actions, we can no longer claim any moral authority in the world and certainly cannot lead it. Fortunately an inquiry like this will take time, which means if it is started now and the President sets the tone he has set—that we want truth, not a partisan witch hunt (or, I would add, a partisan whitewash)—perhaps by the time the findings and implications are clear, the President and Congress will have already been able to focus on pressing domestic affairs and solving some of the problems that have been neglected for years like moving toward energy independence and addressing the fact that few Americans are truly sure that they will have either their jobs or their health insurance a year from now.

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